G A L L I N I D M. 



569 



logical principles ; but it should seem to have at least 

 some connexion with the preserving of the spirit and 

 vigour of the race. The monogamous ones do not 

 show this pugnacity, but dwell apart and in peace 

 with a single female, and their brood, to which in 

 general they are much more attached than the more 

 warlike polygamists. It is from this habit of shedding 

 his blood for the sake of the other sex, on the part of 

 the common domestic cock (gallus], that duels and 

 strifes in the matter of females of the human race 

 came to be called " gallantry," which again became 

 expressive of all particular and marked attentions to 

 the sex, and subsequently bravery in a general sense. 

 In the polygamous species, the males take no share 

 in preparing the nest, or rearing the young, which are 

 for the most part very numerous, and capable of run- 

 ning immediately after issuing from the shell. The 

 female guides and protects them till they moult, and 

 calls them together by a particular cry for feeding. 

 The males are furnished, in most species, with spurs 

 on their tarsi. They walk and parade very majestic 

 and graceful, and run nimbly ; but they fly with dif- 

 ficulty, and a whirring noise. Though they chiefly 

 subsist on grain, and the seeds of plants, yet they like- 

 wise eat insects, grubs, and worms, which are mace- 

 rated in their crop. Their gastric juice, it appears, 

 will not dissolve entire grains; for those of barley, for 

 example, inclosed in tubes, or perforated spherules, 

 are not affected by its action ; but, should the same 

 grains be by any means broken.or ground, they dissolve 

 very speedily. The food undergoes previous tritura- 

 tion in the gizzard, a very strong muscular viscus, 

 whose internal coat is hard and cartilaginous. How- 

 ever, as this is not the sort of animal substance suited 

 to the reception of glands, or to secretions, the gastric 

 iuice in this family is not supplied by the stomach it- 

 self, but by the gullet, in which the feeding glands are 

 placed, and from which it trickles down into the sto- 

 mach. Spallanzani, from this peculiarity of nature's 

 economy, appears to have been struck with the resem- 

 blance between the stomachs of gallinaceous birds, 

 and the structure of a corn-mill ; for, while the two 

 sides of the gizzard perform the office of the mill- 

 stones, the crop, or craw, may be compared to the 

 hopper. When our domestic fowls are abundantly 

 supplied with food, they speedily fill their crop ; but 

 its contents do not pass immediately into the giz- 

 zard ; and at all times they enter in very small quan- 

 tities, in proportion to the progress of trituration. 

 The principal part of the species belonging to this 

 order are very quickly, and without much trouble, 

 tamed, and on account of their flesh, their feathers, 

 and eggs, are very useful to mankind. 



So valuable, indeed, are they in both respects, that 

 it is doubtful whether they are more prized as domes- 

 ticated, and in the species which form the ornament, 

 and at the same time contribute not a little to the 

 wealth of the farmyard, or in the others which are 

 still under nature, or at most in a state of prolation, 

 not of domestication. 



The range of these birds, in the different genera 

 and species, is greater than that of perhaps any other 

 order in the whole class. We find them resident all 

 the year round in the very extreme of latitude, upon 

 the wilds of Lapland, in that dreary wilderness which 

 forms the northern portion of America, and on the 

 tops of the most lofty mountains in our own country. 

 There they abide, habitually higher than any other 

 living creature, and changing their colours, so as to 



resemble lichen-clad stone in the summer, and the 

 unstained white of the mountain snow in the winter. 

 Then, when we come to the less elevated but more 

 extended heath, which is still a wilderness, we find 

 other races which make such situations their perma- 

 nent abodes ; and where, notwithstanding the many 

 enemies to which they are exposed, they breed in 

 vast numbers. So also when we come to the hollow 

 in the wilds, the bushy margin of the wild morass, we 

 find that it too has its peculiar race of gallinaceous 

 birds ; for there the black cock is as constant to his 

 locality as the ptarmigan is to the summit of the lofty 

 mountain, or the red grouse to the upland moor. As 

 little does the pine forest lack its bird of this order ; 

 for in the vast assemblages of pine and other trees of 

 giant growth, which fill the dells and frown over the 

 steeps of the Scandinavian mountains, the wood grous, 

 one of the most splendid birds of the whole, is found 

 in such numbers as to form a considerable article of 

 export trade. This fine speciecs was once native, 

 and, according to the older accounts, not rare, in the 

 northern parts of our island ; but it has disappeared 

 for these many years, and there is no doubt that it is 

 now extinct. We believe that attempts have been 

 made to introduce it artificially into the artificial pine 

 woods, but they have not succeeded, whether from 

 the circumstance of the bird not meeting with its pro- 

 per food in these places, or from any other, we are 

 unable to say. This much, however, is certain, that 

 the native pines, among which the wood grous was 

 wont to dwell, in the Highlands of Scotland, rivalled 

 in quality those among which it still dwells in Nor- 

 way and Sweden ; and that the planted pine which 

 have come in their stead are very different and very 

 inferior. We have heard it remarked that the planted 

 pines, and especially the spruces, none of which, we 

 believe, were ever natives of the Highlands, destroy 

 the bilberry, the heath-berry, and the juniper, which 

 are understood to furnish these birds with a consider- 

 able portion of their food ; but what truth there may 

 be in this, we have not the means of ascertaining. 



When we descend to lower elevations and richer 

 pastures, these birds still accompany our steps, and 

 we have no sooner taken leave of the grouse at the 

 margin of the moor, than we find the partridge on the 

 first cultivated ground, and it continues with ns till 

 we come almost to the threshold of the rustic 

 dwelling, to the close vicinity of the town, or to the 

 shore of the sea ; and though the quail is now 

 rarely, if at all, resident in the British islands, we 

 find it inhabiting still lower down ; but the quail is 

 a more discursive bird from country to country than 

 those which we have mentioned. 



All the gallinidae which can be considered as of 

 polar or northern extraction seem to be common to 

 the two continents, or at all events not to differ much 

 more than the mammalia of which the same genera 

 are common to both ; and from the readiness with 

 which most of the birds of this order adapt themselves 

 to circumstances, and take a type from those circum- 

 stances, we might be prepared to expect at least as 

 great differences as there arc between the grous of 

 the eastern continent and the grous of America, even 

 though both may have been originally of the same 

 stock. 



When, however, we come to the southern latitudes 

 where the wide seas cut off the continents from each 

 other, so that they are too distant for land birds gene- 

 rally, and for gallinaceous birds especially, passing 



